ISAIAH - CHAPTER 41 - GOD CHALLENGES THE NATIONS
GOD CHALLENGES THE NATIONS
Isaiah 41
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
September 16, 2014, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
In chapter 40, we found the Lord, by the mouth of His prophet exposing the vanity and worthlessness of idolatry. He now summons the nations and pagan deities to his heavenly court and throws a challenge to them to which (as it proves) they have no reply.
41:1: “Keep silence before Me (as Judge), O islands; and let the people renew their strength; let them come near; then let them speak; let us come near together to judgment (mishpat). (“Mishpat means rule; execute judgment; to be correct or to render a correct decision; act of deciding a case; execution of judgment and time of judgment; justice; right; etc.)
The islands (a poetic name for the heathen nations and certainly the continents) are invited to be spectators and auditors of the controversy. Jehovah Himself delivers the summons and he is the Judge who will make the judgment.
The theme of God’s power, comfort; and control of history, past, present and future continues through this chapter. The prophet again touches the soil of the 21st century and the year 2014 as the nations of the earth are being challenged to come together in unity against a Babylonian enemy. However, many of the proposed coalition of nations are anti-Christian and anti-Israel.
Though the U.S.A. is leading the challenge in the war against ISIS. Here it is the Lord who is calling all the nations to account.
In verse 2, the Lord commences the challenge. He makes the proof and vindication of His sovereignty by the prophetic announcement of the great conqueror who was to deliver captive Israel from the grasp of the most potent nation then in the world.
41:2-4: “Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to His foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? He gave them as the dust to his sword and as driven stubble to his bow. He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. Who has wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the First, and with the Last; I am He.”
The Lord announces the coming deliverer whom He and He alone in His incomparable might will raise up to the astonishment of the terrified nations. “The righteous man from the east” is Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, a land lying east of Babylon.
However, in verse 25, the term, “from the rising of the sun” is used to describe the land from where Cyrus came. We will be running into this term several times in the Book of Isaiah.
In July 2014, I preached a message which was a “burden which came” titled “From The Rising of the Sun”. The terrorist organization ISIS or ISIL aspire to sovereign religious authority over all Muslims and to bring the Muslim inhabited regions of the world under its direct control. The area they aspire to rule is known as the Levant region in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait, and southern Turkey.
Levant means “rising of the sun in the east” and “the place of rising”.
It is my persuasion this is the reason President Obama chooses to use the name ISIL because it validates the “Levant” and the inclusion of Israel in its caliphate agenda.
As prophesied by Jeremiah, Cyrus was to become God’s instrument of terminating the Babylonian captivity. The nations are here pictured as seeking the protection of their idol deities against Cyrus and his Medo-Persian army. The historical fulfillment of verses 5-6 has been fulfilled with certainty.
41:5-6: “The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.”
The Isles (the maritime countries/continents ) ‘saw” the victorious march of Cyrus and feared. The remotest parts of the earth trembled and were terrified. They drew near and came together. They helped one another. Hostile and divided nations forgot their mutual jealous and hates, that they might be confederate when their altars as well as their thrones were in peril.
Though these verses are prophetic of King Cyrus, whose name carried terror among the wicked nations. He was only a delegated authority of the King of kings, the one mightier than the mightiest. He who ‘calls the generations of men from the beginning; I Jehovah, the first, and with the last; I am He!”
Cyrus “the righteous man”, or minister of God’s “righteousness,” was one to whose noble nature the term just or righteous among the tyrants of the world can be exceptionally applied.
41:8-10: “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from the chief men thereof, and said to you, you are My servant; I have chosen you, and not cast you away. Fear not; for I am with you; do not be dismayed; for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness.”
Jehovah has waited on the summoned nations for an answer to His challenge. However, there being, no reply, He delivers this exposition to Israel, His own covenant people, giving the assurance of safety and protection. These words of affection are intended for the comfort of His church in every age.
“Strengthen,” “help”, “uphold”, a trinity of divine forces, a triple wall of divine protection: ---“If God be for us, who can be against us?”
41: 11-13: “Behold, all they that were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even them that contended with you; they that war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught. For I the Lord your God will hold your right hand saying to you, Fear not; I will help you.”
The same assurances are re-iterated, only adding a more tender and expressive description of Israel’s feebleness and helplessness, in contrast with His own willingness and ability to save.
“Worm Jacob” He calls them in their exile; like a worm, down-trodden, impotent to evade the cruel heel of the conqueror, trampled in the dust of degradation.
41: 14: “Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
The idea is a handful of abandoned captives in prison in Babylon in abject helplessness and despair. Removed from their old glory as the covenant nation---“the seed of Abraham.” The name “Redeemer” is the Hebrew word “Goel”, the same as that used by Job ages before when he uttered, “I know that my Redeemer lives.
To a Hebrew reader, “Goel” would suggest a near kinsman (Lev. 25:25); a deliverance from bondage by the payment of a ransom.
There is no doubt that Isaiah here saw the glory of a Greater than Cyrus. From the victories of an earthly prince, Isaiah is led to speak of the spiritual conquests of the Prince of the kings of the earth, who by means of human instrumentality, even by the “worm Jacob,” will subdue power and principalities; and take captivity captive.
41: 15-16: “Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. You shall fan them; and you shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.”
From the seed of that feeble worm, Jesus Christ will thresh the mountains, beat them small and reduce the hills to chaff. It is by “the day of small things” Christ is to accomplish the conversion of mankind. He has in every age honored lowly instruments. By a simple gospel in the hands of unlettered preachers, mountains of pride and idolatry have crumbled to pieces. The wisdom of God has been proven to be wider than men, and the weakness of God to be stronger than men.
With the sling of faith, and the few stones from the running brook of is own Word---not the vaunted armor of earth’s great ones---he has brought to the dust the world’s giants of unbelief.
“Who are you, O great mountain before (the true) Zerubbabel? You shall become a plain? (Zech 4:7)
“Worm Jacob,” not proud Lucifer, will gain the day. While God has given the Redeemer---the true Cyrus commission to “loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaded gates of brass, and to cut the iron bars asunder,” those by whom His victories are to be achieved are “the poor crowd of Israel”. The treasure is committed to earthen vessels, that the Excellency and the power may be altogether of Him.
Any who are fearful, of a desponding heart, cast down by a great fight of afflictions, perplexing duties, grave responsibilities, fiery trials, temptations, arise in the might of Jacob’s God, saying, “Our eyes are upon you”.
Amos 7:2: “By whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small.”
41: 17-19: “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together.”
These seven trees speak of a perfect and complete new creation. We can compare with the seven spirits of God.
- The Cedar = the King of the trees.
- The Shittah =the Acacia = used for Moses’ tabernacle
- The Myrtle = Esther = used for the Feast of Tabernacles = the Glory of God.
- The Oil Tree = the Holy Ghost
- The fir Tree = the blessings of God toward his people
- The Pine = God Himself – Hos. 14:8: “I am like a green pine; your fruitfulness comes from me.”
- The Box tree = a tall tree, perhaps a cedar.
41:20: “That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done, this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.”
The Creator created the unity of all these trees dwelling together in the wilderness. Trees are metaphorical of people. The Psalmist pictures the godly person as a tree. Trees play an important role in the glorious eschatological blessing at the end of the age. They are representatives of the whole of the renewed created order, praising the Lord for his righteous judgments. “Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy.”
The second challenge addressed to the pagan gods of the nations is in verses 21-29. Ancient documents testify to the many predictions made by the spokesmen of Mesopotamian deities. But not any Babylonian deity ever successfully predicted any historical event. The acid test, says the prophet is whether any of them had ever predicted the rise of Cyrus.
41:21-24: “Produce your cause, says the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yea, do good or do evil that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of nothing; an abomination is he that chooses you.”
In verse 14, Jacob is described as a “worm”. Here the Lord identifies himself as the King of Jacob, thus declaring the Kingdom of God.
Jehovah and his worshippers are viewed as being on one side, the idol gods and their worshippers on the other. The idol gods and their lovers are challenged to produce fulfilled predictions and to perform works comparable unto those of God. God proves his superiority in two ways: (1) He foretold the coming of Cyrus the Great as Israel’s deliverer from the captivity, (2) and He dared to announce these tidings long before their fulfillment.
41: 25-29: “I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come; from the rising of the sun shall he call upon My name; and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay. Who has declared from the beginning that we may know? And before time, that we may say, he is righteous? Yes, there is none that shows. Yes, there is none that declares. Yes, there is none that hears your words. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them; and I will give to Jerusalem one that brings good tidings. For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counselor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing; their molten images are wind and confusion.”
In verses 28-29, the Lord reaches the conclusion to His challenge. This conclusion meets with stony silence, for there is no answer. The idols can neither predict nor perform. Thus, their claim to deity is void.
The Lord Himself produces proof of His sole Deity. He alone has irresistible power to effect Cyrus’ rise, and infallible foresight to foretell it through His prophet.
Having thus announced the majesty of Jehovah, the prophet proceeds to utter his general manifesto, which continues into chapter 42.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary; Principles of Present Truth by: Kelly Varner; the Harp Taken from the Willows by: John Ross MacDuff; Dictionary of Biblical Imagery.
Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.